Jewish Identity in British Politics: The Case of the First Jewish MPs, 1858–87

Michael Clark

AbstrAct

This article examines the nature of Jewish identity in British politics through a case study of the first Jewish Members of Parliament. The 1858 achievement of the right to sit in Parliament marked the culmination of the struggle for Jewish emancipation in Britain. Consequently, the first Jewish MPs were at the forefront of debates concerning Anglo-Jewry’s place in British society and were confronted, in particular, with the di-chotomy that equality presented European Jews: existing as a minority subculture in a modern nation-state. Between 1858 and 1887, Jewish MPs grew in number and suc-cessfully combined Jewish and general interests with little antisemitic reproach, demon-strating a remarkable confluence between the community’s and the nation’s concerns. However, certain issues raised tensions that forced Anglo-Jewry to defend their specific-ity within British politics against the perceived terms of their inclusion. This article reveals the ambiguous nature of nineteenth-century Anglo-Jewish identity, highlighting its integration but also continuing particularity and precariousness.

Key words: Anglo-Jewry, emancipation, specificity, British politics

O n July 28, 1858, Lionel de Rothschild entered the House of Commons and, swearing a modified oath on the Old Testa-ment, took his seat as the first professing Jewish Member of

Parliament. It was a momentous occasion. Ending an 11-year struggle to sit for the City of London (which had returned him five times), it

Michael Clark, “Jewish Identity in British Politics: The Case of the First Jew-ish MPs, 1858–87,” Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture, Society n.s. 13, no. 2 (Winter 2007): 93–126

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marked also the culmination of Anglo-Jewry’s 30-year campaign for emancipation and the first time a non-Christian had sat in Parlia-ment. Nearly 100 years later, Cecil Roth, the doyen of Anglo-Jewish history, would end his A History of the Jews in England with this mo-ment, representing it as the occasion when Jew and Englishman achieved complete synthesis and after which the community had no notable existence as a distinct entity.1 The reality was, of course, far more complex. For a start, Jews had petitioned for and were granted this political right on the basis of their being merely another sect dis-senting from the Established Church. But over the subsequent de-cades, when the community sought exceptional treatment on controversial issues ranging from marriage to education, it became increasingly obvious that their political requirements often diverged from those of Christians. Were they, then, as the opponents of eman-cipation had claimed, an anomalous ethno-religious group that would inject an “alien” element into the British polity? The communi-ty’s constant efforts to succor foreign Jews, which included indicting acts of persecution before the House, seemed to suggest there might have been some basis to such a dual-allegiance claim. The accultur-ated nature of Anglo-Jewry was, however, undeniable. England’s civil society had facilitated greater social and economic integration than other European Jewries had achieved, and Anglo-Jews were fervently patriotic and devoted to the country’s interests and institutions; many, for instance, even defended the Anglican Church against threats of disestablishment. Assimilated yet distinct, Anglo-Jewry faced the existential dilemma that, in one way or another, beset many European Jews in this period: how to reconcile being Jewish in the modern world.

Jewry has posed a long-term problem for British historiography. The community escapes easy classification, and historians, unsure of where to locate them within traditional frameworks of analysis (reli-gion, ethnicity, class, politics), have generally overlooked their pres-ence as a result. Jewish history, when it is mentioned, is often reduced to serving as illustrative of more general phenomena—Jews as recipi-ents of fascist antipathy demonstrate that ideology’s intolerance, for example. As Todd Endelman explains:

Unaccustomed to viewing minorities as historical actors in the British context, committed to the tolerant, assimilative powers of English culture, and, above all, wishing to avoid the appearance of being too concerned with Jews (and thus open to charges of intolerance), historians of Britain are content to ignore or minimise the Jewish presence in their work.2

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The Anglo-Jewish experience, subtly merging with and diverging from the “mainstream” of British history without any major disjuncture (in-ternal or external, for good or bad), has often, therefore, eluded histor-ical notice.

Only two works, in fact, offer substantial research on Jewish politi-cal activity and its ramifications in nineteenth-century Britain. Geof-frey Alderman’s The Jewish Community in British Politics was the first study to demonstrate the importance of politics to Anglo-Jewry’s communal development, highlighting the continuation of minority specificity within the political framework and the existence of a dis-tinctly Jewish dimension to British politics.3 Alderman includes con-siderable detail on Jewish MPs and the Jewish contribution to British political life. But these issues remain on the periphery of his study, which is focused on examining the “Jewish vote.” The work also suf-fers from a timescale bias common to much of Anglo-Jewish histori-ography: it passes swiftly over the initial post-emancipation decades. Sandwiched between the more dramatic milestones of emancipation and mass immigration, the period from 1858 to the early 1880s has often been treated by historians as a “Golden Age” in communal his-tory, a time of grace when Jews lived in harmony with their surround-ings.4 Traditionally, therefore, it has not been considered particularly profitable for investigation. Only recently has the importance of the period been recognized as one of the most formative for British Jew-ish identity, especially in the political sense as Jews ventured into this realm as equal citizens for the first time. The work of David Feldman, though still concentrated on the post-1880 era, did much to promote this viewpoint and has come closest to redressing the general neglect of Jewish study within British history. In Englishmen and Jews: Social Re-lations and Political Culture, 1840–1914, Feldman illuminates how Jew-ish social development and political activity influenced discourse concerning their place in British society.5 Turning the Jewish pres-ence inside out, the work shows that debates about Jewish identity were also, essentially, debates about British identity. This approach reveals the changing perceptions of Jews as a group within the British polity and the consequences of their presence on national political discussion, but in doing so it tends to lose sight of the Jews them-selves. Feldman’s evidence is drawn primarily from non-Jewish sources, and the Jews’ voices are seldom heard. Consequently, the im-pact of these issues on Anglo-Jewish identity is often overlooked.

This general lack of attention is regrettable, because the analysis and understanding of Anglo-Jewish history has much to offer both British and Jewish historians. In this article, I will examine the ac-

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tions and attitudes of the first Jewish MPs, positioning Jewry within contemporary British politics and society and revealing aspects of their identity, an identity that fitted none of the perceived categories but occupied a flexible and ill-defined space somewhere in between. The unique situation of the MPs could be both very British and con-siderably Jewish, depending on what the accommodating yet national and Christian-based political culture allowed or demanded. As a group of first-time politicians operating in the most English of envi-ronments to which they had recently been contentiously admitted, Jewish MPs were at the forefront of debates concerning Anglo-Jewry’s place in British society. They provide an opportunity to illustrate both the nature of Anglo-Jewry’s existence and its particular response to the issues of emancipation that confronted Jewish communities across Europe in the nineteenth century.

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There were eighteen individual Jews who sat as MPs between 1858 and 1887. Lionel de Rothschild, as mentioned above, was the first in July 1858. In the next general election a year later, he was joined by two coreligionists. The Jewish presence in the legislature jumped to six in 1865; hovering between four and seven for the next two de-cades, it reached a peak of nine in the elections of 1885 and 1886.6 These Jewish MPs were a diverse group in both background and po-litical activity, ranging from international banking magnates, like the Rothschilds, to obscure pottery manufacturers from Yorkshire, such as Stuart Woolf. Initially, though, as might be expected, men con-nected with finance dominated Jewish representation. All three MPs in 1859—a Rothschild, a Goldsmid, and David Salomons—derived their principal income from banking. Financiers continued to re-main important throughout the period; members of the Cohen and Montagu banking dynasties joined scions of the Rothschild and Goldsmid families in the 1880s. Comprising nine individuals, finan-ciers were the largest occupational grouping among Jewish MPs of the period.7 Second to this was a legal group, which encompassed seven MPs. That barristers should form so comparatively large a con-tribution is not surprising. The ability to practice law had been a no-table right gained during the emancipation campaign, and Jews pursuing their equality in this direction were also drawn to similar efforts in the political sphere, as demonstrated by the early presence of emancipationist Jews like Francis Goldsmid (the first Jewish barris-ter) and Salomons (the first Jewish magistrate).8 Over time, the Jew-

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ish legal presence in the House of Commons became professionalized through the entry of men who had nationally recognized legal exper-tise, such as George Jessel and Arthur Cohen. The remaining five MPs came from a variety of occupational backgrounds: provincial in-dustrialists Woolf, Saul Isaac, and James Jacoby; engineer Lewis Isaacs; and the merchant, nonpracticing barrister, and politician Henry de Worms.

Irrespective of their backgrounds, few Jewish MPs were outstand-ing politicians. Commentaries and biographies (both contemporary and historiographical) are replete with lamentations regarding their inability to speak, their lack of involvement in debate, and their gen-eral inactivity in the House.9 The community was far from emulating the political ability and accomplishments of some European Jews. In France, for instance, Adolphe Crémieux and David Raynal both served as interior minister in 1870 and 1883–84, respectively.10 Only two Anglo-Jews, Jessel and De Worms, attained government office in Britain during this period, a fact perhaps partly attributable to lin-gering prejudice but more likely a reflection of poor political perfor-mance connected to the lack of interest of busy career-men. Moreover, only De Worms, as secretary to the Board of Trade (1885–86, 1886–88), held a political post. Jessel, as solicitor general (1871–73), ful-filled primarily legal tasks.11

The majority of Jewish MPs had far less notable Parliamentary ca-reers. Some died before gaining the opportunity: Frederick Gold-smid, for instance, was elected in July 1865 but expired the following March. Some seem to have been concerned only with regional politi-cal issues: James Jacoby spoke on only five occasions over 1885–87, of which four were related to mining in his Mid-Derbyshire constitu-ency.12 Others were simply not interested in Parliamentary politics, as was the case with Lionel, Mayer, and Nathaniel de Rothschild, who collectively spoke in the House only twice, restricting their activity to voting infrequently. Ferdinand de Rothschild’s record was little bet-ter. So anonymous was the Rothschild presence in Parliament that the Jewish Chronicle (henceforth JC), the oldest and preeminent Anglo-Jewish newspaper, publicly, if politely, complained of the impression of indifference it conveyed.13 The family was not, however, without political power. Rothschild political relations with the British estab-lishment were from the beginning based on the family’s economic standing.14 They did not need to cultivate influence in the House, being able to work more easily through the intimate world of Victo-rian politics: the City, the West End clubs, and society events. As Lio-nel’s obituary noted: “His inability to walk had long prevented him

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from taking part in any but the most important divisions, although Mr. Goschen [a fellow Liberal MP for the City] had told the electors that from his writing-table in New Court Baron Lionel de Rothschild exerted more influence on their behalf than a much more active member could have done.”15

It was within this environment that the Rothschilds were politi-cally influential, offering financial aid and advice as well as informa-tion from their extensive continental contacts to both Liberals and Tories.16 Their Parliamentary presence was a matter of status, a reflec-tion of their wealth and membership in the ruling class, as opposed to any desire for active political participation.17 There were many Jew-ish MPs, however, who took their role more seriously. Lily Montagu described her father’s motivation for entering Parliament as recogni-tion of the need to fulfill his social and civic responsibilities.18 Months before his first election, Arthur Cohen detailed his resolve that if “I could be of any real use to the [Liberal] party I would certainly stand,” claiming that he did “not care a jot about entering Parliament for any social consideration, nor for the purpose of getting a judge-ship.”19 In spite of these sentiments, Samuel Montagu and Cohen, like so many other Jewish MPs, played little more than a peripheral part in British politics. Neither forsook their previous occupations, which consumed much more of their time and interest than Parliament. Only De Worms abandoned all alternative interests in favor of con-centrating on a political career.

Given this general lack of political accomplishment among Jewish MPs, it might be wondered why many were ever selected as candi-dates. The example of the Rothschilds provides a clue. Enormously rich, hugely influential, and very well known, their representation could endow any constituency with prestige and promise an increase in fortune. Irrespective of their potential legislative aptitude, the family’s suitability for public life had been demonstrated by success in other areas, and this proved persuasive with electors. Mayer, for in-stance, appealed first and foremost to the economy of his Hythe con-stituents: “By means of my business I hoped to be of service to you as a commercial community, situated as you are, the connecting link be-tween this country and the various cities on the continent of Eu-rope.”20 Although the Rothschild case was unique, virtually all Jewish MPs could boast success in business or a profession, and most had also participated in municipal office. Salomons justified his coming before Greenwich against a local man whose father had previously represented the borough on such terms:

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He had been a magistrate for the County of Kent 22 years; he had filled the office of High Sheriff of the county also, and likewise the office of Lord Mayor of the City of London, and on retiring from the latter posi-tion had carried with him such a testimonial . . . which warranted him in seeking the suffrage of any metropolitan or other constituency in the kingdom.21

Not all Jewish MPs could boast such service, but most had occupied some position of note or authority. The group contained many holders of the various responsible, ceremonial, and honored positions available in Britain’s pageant-fond, hierarchal society, including seven deputy lieutenants, one lord lieutenant, seven justices of the peace, three privy councillors, two mayors, two knights, three baronets, four foreign-titled barons, five sheriffs, and an alderman.22 The majority frequented Lon-don’s most important political clubs; among those with known associa-tions were three Brookes, one Carlton, and nine Reform members.23 Undoubtedly, a number of MPs also belonged to more esoteric societ-ies, like Montagu, who had been initiated into both the Ancient Order of Foresters and the Ancient Order of Druids.24

The contacts Jews established in these influential circles were to provide many with an entry into the political arena. Montagu, having worked for 36 years in the vicinity of Whitechapel, befriended the sit-ting MP and leaders of the local Liberal Council, who, when the seat became vacant, wrote to him requesting he stand in their interest. Until that point, Montagu claimed, he had not considered entering Parliament.25 Lionel Cohen’s political career was boosted immensely by his intimacy with Lord Randolph Churchill, a prominent Tory fig-ure in the early 1880s, who recommended him to other party figures and provided “much prized and valued support” by appearing, occa-sionally with his mother in tow, at several of his election meetings.26 These Jews were evidently at home in and, indeed, a part of the lead-ing stratum of society. Having succeeded vocationally, participated in public life, and associated with elite figures, it was natural, from both their and others’ perspectives, that they now enter politics. This would seem to apply as much to the lesser lights among the MPs, who operated at more provincial levels, as it does to eminent City Jews. The Radical Liberal Association, which invited Jacoby to contest Mid-Derbyshire, was most impressed with his civic service in Nottingham-shire—where he had been a member of the Nottingham town council for three years and also sheriff of the county—and countered hostil-ity at his not being a local man by praising his record as at one time the youngest councillor in England.27

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This is not to suggest that Jewish MPs had an easy and unproblem-atic entry onto the British political stage. Their connections and Parlia-mentary activity were probably typical of many MPs and do much to demonstrate how easily Jews operated within and integrated into Brit-ish political life, but there were occasions when Jews met opposition specifically because of their religious confession. The candidature of Salomons in Greenwich in 1859 provoked accusations of “Judaistical tricks”; Mayer’s victory at Hythe in the same election witnessed the par-ish church refuse to permit the customary bell ringing.28 Julian Gold-smid suffered the worst treatment of the period during the 1870 Rochester by-election. He had come to Rochester with previous Parlia-mentary experience and was selected, out of 11 applicants, to replace the deceased member by an “overwhelming majority” of the local Lib-eral party.29 Conservative supporters immediately instigated a cam-paign of stereotyping—attacking him as a man devoted to commerce and denigrating the validity of Old Testament religion.30 Goldsmid, openly baited on the nomination platform, sought to rise above such sordidness: “Our opponent has in a somewhat illiberal sentence ob-jected to me on account of my religious opinions. I am rather proud of that, because it shows he cannot object to me on any other ground. . . . My religious opinions are not a question for him but for me alone.”31 This drew a derisive shout from the crowd—“What have you done with Lazarus?”—which occasioned considerable laughter. It was rapidly fol-lowed by similar interjections: shouts of “Jew, Jew” and “Who sold the saviour?”32 Unfortunately for Goldsmid, such sentiments were not con-fined to the borough’s Conservatives. As the local Tory paper observed, with a certain amount of schadenfreude, he had proved an injudicious choice for Rochester Liberals. The poll testified to the accuracy of this claim: despite the support of the party and sitting MP, Goldsmid re-ceived approximately 500 fewer votes than his predecessor had in 1868.33 The paper, through a series of annoyed correspondents, subse-quently entertained requests for the organization of an apolitical vot-ing league “with the object of obtaining the seat for a Christian representative.”34 Although this never materialized, Goldsmid was un-able to overcome the city’s prejudice. He was reelected in 1874, when there was little serious opposition, but the depth of feeling against him was evident again in 1880 when, despite being the senior member in an election that produced a national Liberal victory, he came in at the bot-tom of the poll.35

Such politically sparked anti-Jewish incidents continued through-out this period; Ferdinand encountered some in 1885.36 But they were noticeable primarily because of their scarcity. These events were iso-

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lated and small-scale and seemed even more so when compared to the pervasive and organized political antisemitism that confronted many other Jewish communities at this time. German Jews, for example, were enduring, inter alia, Adolf Stoecker’s Christian Social Party’s racist campaign to bar them from state positions and the beginning of their de facto exclusion from public administration.37 Anti-Jewish sentiment in Britain had traditionally lacked political resonance.38 Usually, the Jewish candidate was elected and expressions of support dwarfed those of hostility. Evidently, though, the electorate did class Jews differently, perceiving them as a specific phenomenon, different from other nomi-nees, and not just another species of dissenter. But this distinction was not necessarily negative, and some MPs, in fact, exploited it to their ad-vantage. Both Francis Goldsmid and Salomons talked up their Jewish allegiance and the hardship attendant upon it in a bid to associate themselves with the cause of freedom. This was certainly appreciated by the voters of Greenwich, where several election songs where com-posed to propagate the theme.39 The most overt use of Jewishness to gain political credit was, understandably, undertaken by Montagu in Whitechapel. With an electorate estimated as nearly 50 percent Jewish, Montagu’s membership in and beneficence toward the community nat-urally featured heavily in his electioneering.40

These politically designed Jewish appeals were sometimes contro-versial. Montagu’s campaign elicited criticism from his Tory oppo-nents, who styled him the “Hebrew candidate” and intimated that he was more concerned with Jewish interests than Liberal policies.41 Fel-low Jewish MP Lionel Cohen also took issue with Montagu’s tactics and wrote to the JC in complaint. Describing his own refusal to adver-tise Jewishness in pursuance of electoral ambitions, he “held it objec-tionable personally to appeal to my Jewish brethren as Jews on behalf of any Jewish candidate, in any political contest, which affects them only in common with their fellow-countrymen at large.”42 Cohen’s ob-jections were not an isolated outburst but formed part of a perennial communal debate concerning the propriety and possibility of Jewish MPs appealing to and representing their coreligionists, qua Jews, in the political sphere. Montagu’s Whitechapel, as the most overt exam-ple, was a flashpoint for discussion in the late 1880s, but it had a sig-nificant Jewish community that could justify a certain sectarian approach. Virtually all other Jewish politicians sat for constituencies with either nonexistent or exceedingly small Jewish electorates. Their basis of authority, as politicians, was derived from sources wholly ex-ternal to Jewry, thus making it problematic to represent Jewish inter-ests. The sine qua non of European Jews’ emancipation had been the

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proscription of minority particularism since the Count de Clermont-Tonnerre established the terms of French Jews’ inclusion in 1789: “The Jews should be denied everything as a nation, but granted ev-erything as individuals. . . . It is intolerable that the Jews should be-come a separate political formation or class in the country.”43 The logic of emancipation in Britain was no different: Jews had been ad-mitted to equal citizenship on the understanding that their specific-ity was to be restricted to the confessional sphere, and this dictated against any specifically Jewish elements being present in their politi-cal activity, especially ones that might indicate a group loyalty sepa-rate from the English polity.

As a result, links between the Anglo-Jewish community and Jewish MPs were officially played down in the Jewish press. The JC and Jewish World, a less well regarded newspaper founded in 1873, routinely stated throughout the period that Jewish MPs did not represent any “organised politico-religious party” or, indeed, that there was any such thing as a “Jewish Member of Parliament.”44 Communal institu-tions, particularly the Board of Deputies of British Jews, a body of elected representatives who claimed to be the official medium of communication between the community and the government, were viewed as the most appropriate channel through which to make Jew-ish political interests known. Parliamentary politics were a separate matter, because MPs had no mandate for Jewish issues. And the ma-jority of Jewish politicians, from the obscure Woolf to the renowned Jessel, never took a Parliamentary interest in Jewish affairs. They be-haved as politicians of the Jewish persuasion. But, as the case of Gold-smid at Rochester demonstrates, the rectitude of Jewish political behavior was no guarantee that the MPs would be received as the dis-senting Englishmen they portrayed themselves to be. The solidarity of Jewry in the popular mind often meant that, by merely being Jew-ish, the MPs were perceived as exponents of communal opinion, as members of another group. In Parliamentary debates relating to Jew-ish issues, gentile politicians would look to them. When such issues occasioned party argument, as did the Russian pogroms of 1882, both sides attempted to use their Jewish politicians to adduce com-munal support for their positions.45 Most gentile politicians, to some extent, believed Jewish MPs “spoke with great weight and authority as Representatives of the Jewish community.”46

This representative nature meant that the politicians served the community as useful indicators of tolerance. That gentiles elected them as Jews, and did so increasingly over the period, suggested to both the JC and Jewish World a growing integration: “That we have

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made enormous strides in social progress must be evident when it is observed how numerous are the Jewish candidates for Parliamentary honours.”47 The number of Jewish MPs, therefore, became an index of Jewry’s acceptance. Precisely because of this, the community did not want the MPs to appear as the Parliamentary arm of British Jewry.48 However, the community did expect them to watch over its in-terests. The JC, rejecting the possibility of completely severing “syna-gogue and life,” would remind MPs that “besides the constituency that elected him, he has also to represent another, not by virtue of his choice, but of his birth.”49 Claiming that Jewish politicians had a re-sponsibility to other Jews, the paper admitted that the Board of Dep-uties could only achieve so much and that the communal voice be heard in Parliament depended to a “great extent” on them.50 Beneath the platitudes of neutrality, a specific Jewish political interest re-mained—one based, it seems, not on the voluntary association of confession which bound the various Christian Parliamentarians to their sectarian interests, but on an ethnic kinship. Some Jewish MPs were happy to advance Jewish concerns. Salomons, Francis Goldsmid (“the member for Jewry”), John Simon (who took over this mantle upon Goldsmid’s death), De Worms, and, to a lesser extent, Arthur Cohen and Montagu spent time and effort furthering Jewish inter-ests, both large and small, domestic and foreign, in the House. In pursuing this political representation of Jewishness, the politicians acted as Jewish MPs, rather than as MPs of the Jewish persuasion.

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The political issues on which these MPs sustained a Jewish stance re-veal much about the identity of late-nineteenth-century Anglo-Jews, the nature and possibilities of their emancipation, and the position they attempted to locate for themselves within British politics. Do-mestically, there was little legislation directly affecting Jews in this pe-riod, and concerning most Parliamentary business their affiliation was inconsequential. The Jewish United Synagogues Act of July 1870 was the only item that dealt exclusively with the community. Purely a matter of internal organization—it confirmed the scheme of the charity commissioner providing for the amalgamation of the main Ashkenazi synagogues, establishing an overarching structure that co-ordinated finance and ritual—the act was not contentious and occa-sioned no debate.51 Jewish MPs had not needed to speak on the subject. However, there were several issues during this period in which Jews, to varying degrees, felt compelled to intervene in order

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to safeguard their religious specificity, notably Sunday bills (particu-larly those prohibiting work), religious education, and marriage reg-ulations. Doing so was contentious. The liberal fantasy of European emancipation had anticipated the blurring of minority-majority dif-ferences since Wilhelm von Dohm’s 1781 treatise argued that equal-ity—encouraging Jews’ “civic betterment”—would lead to the fusion of their interests with those of Christians.52 It was an assumption that the principal Anglo-Jewish emancipationists, who were also the com-munity’s original MPs, did much to facilitate in the British political sphere. Men like Salomons, Lionel de Rothschild, and Francis Gold-smid had desired complete equalization before the law and sought to ensure that no feature of Jewish life impinged on English life. To this end they were willing to sacrifice aspects of religious particularity, ac-cepting, for example, the loss of rabbinical control over divorce brought about by the 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act, rather than seek-ing an exemption that would have placed Jews in a special legal category.53

This remained the official attitude after emancipation. The JC de-clared in 1865 that “As a religious body we require nothing from the government.”54 But, underneath, there had been a subtle shift in opinion. This assertion was followed by a sentence that hints at the change: “Let by all means the Church and Rome contend for suprem-acy; let Dissent wrangle with her equality; the Synagogue just wants to be left alone.”55 Not only does this establish Anglo-Jewry as a spe-cific polity but it also admits that, as such, the community had politi-cal requirements, namely noninterference in its religion. This view crystallized in the early 1870s when William Gladstone’s first ministry sought to implement a program of overdue domestic reform. This en-compassed a raft of issues, from local government to Irish Church disestablishment, but many of them, such as the inauguration of a na-tional education system, promoted collectivist measures, thereby af-flicting Jews with a host of regulations highlighting their peculiarity.56 By 1874, the JC had become more truculent, calling for “ jealous vigi-lance” lest the legislature unintentionally prove prejudicial to Jews’ sacred interests as an “exceptional people.”57 Jewish MPs were pre-pared to provide it. From 1858 to 1887 they undertook action rang-ing from verbal protest to delivering petitions, proposing amendments to legislation, and introducing bills to protect Jewish interests.

Remarkably, this was done initially by MPs who had, prior to emancipation, advocated strict equality. Salomons, once the leading protagonist against Jewish separatism, was by 1871 introducing a bill designed solely to exempt Jews from general legislation. His Work-

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shop Regulation Act Amendment would affect, he replied to a ques-tion, very few non-Jews; it “was only intended to assist the poorest class of Jewish employers and Jewish workmen who keep their Sab-bath.”58 The community had been pushing for such a provision since the passage of the 1867 Factory and Workshops Acts, which, prohibit-ing the employment of women and children on the Christian “man-made” Sabbath, disadvantaged many Jews, who observed their own day of rest on Saturday and were thus limited to a five-day work week.59 The JC had long castigated this arrangement, and it praised Salo-mons’s effort as “the first endeavour made by a Member of Parliament of the Jewish faith to obtain from the legislature the mitigation of a hardship affecting the Jewish industrial classes.”60 It was not to be the last: Jewish MPs continued to press similar claims throughout the en-tire period. Post-emancipation, Jews felt justified in protesting if na-tional legislation compromised their religion, even though this meant perpetuating a level of exceptionalism.

This was a significant departure. Jews seeking special privileges, to have their otherness protected by the law, was a considerable reas-sessment of their presence in society. The dynamic of pre-emancipa-tion acculturation was tempered. It might even be suggested that the community sought to reverse this trend, for its desire to maintain a certain speciality was not limited to contemporary legislation but ex-tended retrospectively to correct measures existing prior to emanci-pation. The most striking example of this was the JC’s fervent and long-standing agitation in favor of passing a Marriage to a Deceased Wife’s Sister Bill. Such bills—a constant feature of Parliamentary business throughout this period, being considered every two or three years, if not more frequently—were designed to legalize unions be-tween widowers and their sisters-in-law that had been officially out-lawed by the 1835 Marriage Act. This conjugal prohibition, based on Anglican interpretations of Scripture, was perfectly permissible ac-cording to Jewish law and was not uncommon in many communities.61 The JC first protested the stricture in 1849; by the late 1860s, com-plaints against it had become a regular feature of editorials.62 The pa-per’s initial arguments were based on religious grounds: “The only safe basis in this matter is not to go beyond scripture, precisely as the rabbis have done.”63 But these gave way to less moderate reasoning as successive attempts at relief were denied: “We need not here insist on the great advantages that would accrue to social happiness and pub-lic morality by a repeal of what we must characterise without affecta-tion or exaggeration as a hideous law.”64

Jewish objections were not isolated; they supplemented a consid-

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erable agitation led by nonconformists.65 So widespread was the de-mand for reform, in fact, that by the early 1870s the Liberal party had come to endorse it, and bills seeking to enact change routinely passed the House of Commons.66 The JC was happy to associate the commu-nity’s cause with that of other protesters but made no mistake in as-serting that its sole interest lay in the restoration of Jewish particularity: “We . . . contend that whatever else may be done, an ex-ception should be made in favour of the Jews.”67 To this end, it urged Jewish MPs to push the issue in the House, trusting that no “false del-icacy” would inhibit them.68 Most MPs did vote in favor of the various bills attempting legalization, but they were not moved to do more, and Simon alone spoke in favor of the issue.69 Moreover, his argu-ments were general; although they utilized Jewish examples to prove that the law had no detrimental moral impact, they were pitched in support of comprehensive relief rather than merely Jewish exemp-tion. After a bill in 1872 failed, however, Simon never spoke on the subject again.

The MPs were less willing than the JC to construct a legal enclave. Being in a more responsible position, they were less sanguine about their Jewishness and far more timid in its expression. They would have noted Liberal MP John Bright’s comparison of the emotion driv-ing Parliamentary opposition to these bills with the sentimentality that had denied Jews admission to Parliament.70 Perhaps more of a concern would have been the continuous resistance espoused by The Times, which, eschewing theological exegesis, characterized the move-ment as a destabilizing minority: “In short, we are convinced the country, on the whole, is perfectly satisfied with the existing law, and we strongly deprecate an agitation which . . . can only serve to unset-tle the minds of persons with respect to one of the most fundamental conditions of social order.”71 In this atmosphere, Jewish MPs pre-ferred to downplay the specificity of their requests, to approach the issue as one of general principle, identifying with other protagonists and, in effect, disguising the appeal they were making. Evidently, in politics, Jewry’s post-emancipation existence as a special-interest group was to be circumscribed.

It was also to come at a price. Representing Jewry incurred respon-sibilities as well as opportunities. The safeguarding of Christian feel-ing was a particular priority. Reaction to Jewish emancipation had centered on the fear that it would damage the interrelation of Chris-tianity, the nation, and political authority.72 This attitude was not a well-formed ideology, such as the concept of the Christian State ex-pounded in Prussia to oppose Jewish inclusion, but more a belief that

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basic Christian values were among the few unifying bonds within the British political community, which was frequently divided along party and denominational lines. It was still a potent feeling, which had been articulated by many in the House of Lords to justify their stub-born resistance to full emancipation. Thus, Jewish MPs were hesitant to tackle ecclesiastical politics. On such matters they were expected to act merely as delegates for their constituents, offering no personal opinion.73 Naturally, this was impossible. As a religious minority, Jews would be affected by decisions concerning English Christianity, and consequently, legislating from this perspective, they held distinct po-sitions on these questions.

The issue that provoked Jewish opinion most was the disestablish-ment of the Church of England, the ultimate goal of nonconformity’s drive for complete religious equality and a perpetual House of Com-mons topic. Historically, Anglo-Jewry had supported a strong Estab-lished Church, appreciating that its moderate, latitudinarian nature and notable philosemitic streak could be credited in large part for their acceptance in English society. They continued to support the Church throughout this era. Although they seldom voted on such measures, Jewish MPs often vocally defended the Church when cam-paigning. The Liberal Jacoby reassured his audience in 1885 that “there was no intention to touch a stick or stone of the Church’s prop-erty.”74 Jewish Tories, backing their party line, were more enthusiastic and openly endorsed establishment. In that same year, Lionel Cohen begged his audience “to remember that if you adopt this principle of disestablishment, you are in danger of undermining religious feeling and the religious education of children.”75 For some in the commu-nity, such championing of the Church by a Jew was beyond the pale. “Of all the shams which Conservative Jews propound this is the most hollow and insincere,” proclaimed Montagu.76 Jewish World moaned that not even Lord Salisbury “has more warmly championed the state-subventioned Christian Church” than have some Jews.77 Both Montagu and the paper were puzzled by the stance of some Jewish MPs: “To the Jew, as to every nonconformist, the very name of an Es-tablished Church has an evil sound”; should not Jews, as advocates of religious liberty, be “necessarily hostile” to it?78

This appeal, however, was out of touch with the post-emancipation drift of Anglo-Jewish identity. Most Jews had perceived emancipation as a finality, unlike their dissenting comrades, who treated it as one step toward total religious equalization in Britain.79 After their inclusion, Jews had little taste for promoting spiritual progress and equality; they did not share the dissenters’ desire for a free competition of religions

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liberated from state control.80 Such “abstract principles” did not excite them. Analyzing the situation from their own perspective, Jews con-cluded that, in terms of practical toleration, they had nothing to gain from disestablishment.81 The JC candidly admitted as much in 1872: “Jews, as Jews, can have no interest in advocating the dissolution of Church and State, for under the mild rule of the Anglican Commu-nion they enjoy greater freedom than they could possibly expect under the petty tyranny of conflicting schismatics.”82

After emancipation, Anglo-Jewry was moving away from the non-conformist model. Disestablishment was only one of several issues that highlighted a growing difference between nonconformist and Jewish politics. The Jewish community had, in many ways, been only default dissenters. Naturally excluded because of their minority and non-Christian nature, Jewry logically identified itself with the cause of reli-gious equality in order to end its exclusion. Once legal emancipation had granted equality of treatment and recognition to their faith, many Jews were happy for Christians to maintain their religious peculiarities and advantages, including in the political sphere. There was little de-sire to challenge the existing order, particularly since the community, envious of the social prestige and hierarchical organization of the An-glican Church, had long sought to portray its own religious institutions as the Jewish branch of the establishment.83 But this tendency should not be exaggerated. The distancing was gradual, and on many political issues of the period Jewry and dissent still occupied the same position, as they did over the 1871 abolition of University Tests. The community, with little experience of English higher education, had initially been rather indifferent to this measure, which would have removed the re-maining religious qualifications to obtaining higher degrees and fel-lowships at Oxford and Cambridge. Jews only began enthusiastically to back abrogation in 1868–69, following the unprecedented achieve-ment of several Jewish students at Cambridge.

By this time, though, repeal had been a staple of nonconformity’s legislative aspirations for years, and prominent Liberals had long advo-cated it in the House, where a favorable majority had been obtained as early as 1867.84 This of itself does not suggest any great dissimilarity with nonconformity; both were going in the same direction, albeit at different speeds. Jewish MPs, however, decisively reaffirmed their asso-ciation with dissenters and their core political principle of religious equality in a vexed vote over an amendment to a bill, introduced by the Liberal Henry Fawcett, that was designed to remove the exclusivity of clerical fellowships. This highly controversial amendment, which sought to make fellowships in Christian theology equally attainable by

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all denominations rather than being restricted to Anglicans, sharply divided opinion in the House. The overwhelming majority of noncon-formists were favorable, and The Times was similarly disposed: “It is evi-dent that the removal of this restriction is the logical and necessary accompaniment to the Bill, and that without it the reform must neces-sarily be incomplete.”85 Gladstone and the government were opposed, wishing to send the Lords exactly the same bill they had rejected in 1870 in the belief that this demonstration of the Commons’ resolve would sway some Lords’ opposition and ease the bill’s passage through the second House. The measure was rejected by the narrowest of mar-gins: “[T]he Government had to encounter a Division which was little better than a defeat, for it obtained a narrow majority of 22 over its own supporters by the help of the Conservatives.”86 Five of the six voting Jewish MPs defied the party line.87 Solidly backing religious liberty, they demonstrated their continuing empathy with dissent. As Simon chided Gladstone, “He gave full credit to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government for his desire to give effect to the claims of the Non-conformists; but the Government were mistaken in the course they had adopted.”88

In domestic politics, Jewish MPs supported measures of both equality and particularity. They did so independently and in opposi-tion, at one point or another, to many of the various power groupings within the Liberal party. A distinctive Jewish political standpoint was emerging, and it pursued a compromise agenda, derived from a vari-ety of religious, ethnic, and political considerations. Unable, it would seem, to position itself within existing political definitions, Anglo-Jewry was attempting to carve out its own niche. This development was most succinctly demonstrated by the community’s reaction to and the MPs’ reception of the 1870 Elementary Education Act, which established England’s first national, state-organized schooling sys-tem. This, unlike University Tests, was a measure over which Jewry had long been interested. The JC had lobbied hard in favor of reli-gious education in Britain—deriding the campaign for a secularist system as both misguided and a danger to their minority faith—while being careful to protest the need for protection of Jewish specificity. It was a strongly partisan position:

[T]he position of the Jew utterly differs from that of every Christian de-nomination in educational matters. . . . What have the Jews in common with a Nonconformist? The Nonconformist system of theology does not broadly differ from the Anglican system. But the Jewish system of theol-ogy differs widely from every Christian system.89

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Such fears of educational assimilation were alleviated by the act’s “con-science clauses”—safeguards designed to ensure that the national sys-tem would not transgress the particular principles of any faith—that had been carefully monitored by the Board of Deputies, in tandem with Jewish MPs.90 Simon even negotiated his own amendment through committee, guaranteeing that the act would not “require any child to attend school on any day or occasion set apart for religious observance by the religious body to which his parent belongs.”91 Once such condi-tions were in place, Jews were very happy with a law that instituted the nationwide education for which they had been agitating.

The majority of nonconformists were less enraptured. Severely ex-ercised by aspects of the act they believed infringed religious equal-ity, notably its provision of increased funding for denominational schools and clause 25, which permitted poor children to attend An-glican Church schools at ratepayers’ expense, they agitated to redress these throughout the 1870s. Jews were not similarly motivated. The act’s balance between general application with particular reserva-tions perfectly suited their needs as a minority, providing increased revenue for Jewish schools but also safeguarding their ability to at-tend general schools, thus furthering social integration but without endangering their consciences. Anglo-Jewry, despite the occasional grumbling from the JC about a “violation of conscience,” was, on the whole, not bothered by clause 25.92 Given the community’s overall sat-isfaction with the act, they were, unlike nonconformists, willing to overlook such minor infringements of principle.

On controversial issues of legislation that had no direct impact on the community, Jewish MPs seemed to have maintained a certain re-serve and been largely inactive. When circumstances pressed for deci-sions, these tended to be made with reference to party allegiance. For the overwhelming majority of Jewish politicians, this was owed to the Liberal party. Of the 18 MPs, only four sat for the Conservatives, and the presence of these in Parliament was heavily weighted toward the end of the period. Saul Isaac was the first in 1874, ending 16 years of solely Liberal Jewish representation. Isaac lost his seat in 1880, and De Worms replaced him as the sole representative of Jewish Conservatism. Not until 1885, almost three decades after a Jew first sat in the House of Commons, did the number of Jewish Tories rise beyond one, De Worms being joined by Lionel Cohen and Lewis Isaacs. Jewish MPs’ political al-legiance was dominated by adherence to the Liberals. This was not sur-prising. The Liberal party was both more electorally successful during this era and more representative of interest groups containing Jews: nonconformist religion and non-landed money. Jews’ interests could

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be identified with Liberal interests, and it was rational for the majority to support the party. This Jewish attachment, however, was more com-plex than logical interest identification. For some it was also, in part, based on a deeply emotional and peculiarly Jewish reasoning. As the JC explained:

Liberalism is not forced upon them from without. . . . This Liberalism springs from within. It is not only a product of a feeling of gratitude for the triumph which the Liberal party has achieved for the Jewish cause, but also the firm conviction that it is the vital principle upon which rests the Revelation of Sinai and the indispensable condition of all progress.93

There was a belief, particularly among the more radical Jewish mem-bers, in the essential mutuality of Jewish and Liberal ideals, that the creeds were two sides of the same coin: “The Jew feels instinctively that, politically, he is nothing if he is not a Liberal.”94 For these Jews, being Jewish gave them a special relationship to the Liberal party. This was a common phenomenon across Europe, where Jews typically sought to identify themselves with the currents of liberal feeling and new state systems that were facilitating their emancipation; French Jews fre-quently equated Judaism with Republicanism, for instance. The issue of emancipation in England had in reality blurred and transcended formal political lines but “at the time it was fashionable to see it as a clash . . . between the forces of reaction embodied in the Tory party and the forces of Enlightenment represented by the Radicals, Whigs and Liberals.”95 This simplification entered into popular Jewish con-science. Aggrieved by what it perceived as bigoted Tory opposition, the community was genuinely appreciative of Liberal “efforts” for its free-dom and felt indebted to the party.96 Supporting the Liberals in these circumstances became for many almost a reciprocal Jewish duty.

This incestuous Liberal-Jewish affinity, however, did not last. By the 1886 general election, Jewish MPs were spread virtually evenly across the political spectrum, there being three Conservative, four Liberal, and two Unionist. A fundamental shift had occurred in British Jews’ political allegiance. A delighted JC welcomed this indication of accul-turation: “[T]he Anglo-Jewish community, judged by its representa-tives[,] may be fairly designated the microcosm of English political opinion.”97 The official communal line had always projected just such an image of political neutrality. Its idea (and ideal), despite the reality of a peculiar inclination toward Liberalism, was to “sink the Jew in the Englishmen,” which, as Simon—one of the more bullish Liberals—

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wrote to The Times, would serve as a “striking example of the aptitude of Jews for assimilation with the nations.”98 Such sentiments reflected a desire, perhaps as the novelty of participation waned and issues con-cerning their inclusion were forgotten, to demonstrate that Jews were politically indistinct from other Englishmen. Alderman distinguishes this assimilative urge as the essential cause of the transformation, claiming that Jews’ distancing from Liberalism “was a conscious and deliberate act, and was seen by them as a necessary demonstration of political maturity and . . . of social integration and acceptance.”99 In other words, the move toward a variegated communal politicization was deliberately undertaken in a desire to be more English. This seems unlikely. The action was certainly a conscious one and considerations of acculturation were important, but it would appear that the funda-mental factors were derived from Jewish reasoning.100

Most influential was the Bulgarian agitation of 1876 and subsequent Eastern crisis of 1877–78, when the European powers wrangled over the future of the Ottoman Empire. This episode, which deeply divided Britain, was sparked by the Turkish massacre of Bulgarian Christians during the 1875–76 pacification of their rebellious Balkan territories. When reports of these reached Britain, outrage erupted and Gladstone returned from retirement to lead a nationwide agitation, intent on dis-mantling the Ottoman Empire and liberating the Eastern Christians.101 The Jewish community did not share this perspective, preferring the government’s policy of upholding Porte rule to counter Russian influ-ence in the region. Piqued at this, many Liberals, including Glad-stone—never a great friend of Jewry—associated themselves with anti-Jewish criticism and questioned the community’s Englishness. This deeply wounded Jewry. “Never,” admitted Simon, “was the tempta-tion to throw aside the ties of party greater.”102

A longer-term concern, though, was the dynamic within sections of Liberal opinion of which the agitation was symptomatic and which Jews, as Jews, found alienating. After the 1867 Reform Act extended the franchise, Liberal politics shifted to encompass a more populist base. An enlarged nonconformist presence pushed for a re-moraliza-tion of politics, and the party agenda was increasingly aimed at ad-dressing issues of social and religious inequality. This resulted, as mentioned, in measures that were, at best, ambivalent toward Jewish interests and that provoked the community and its MPs to assert Jew-ish exceptionalism. This did not endear Liberal interventionism to the community. “We do not believe in too much government of any sort; that country is the most free and the most happy which is the least governed” moaned the JC in 1870.103 Increasingly alienated from

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nonconformist opinion and fearing the blurring of differences this tendency entailed, many Jews began to doubt “whether the Liberal party of the day is really the heir of the Whigs of the past.”104 Anglo-Jewry was far from alone in this opinion, and, though vocalized through a specifically Jewish argumentation, the community’s dis-tancing from the Liberal party echoed and was informed by the gen-eral English trend of the period. This witnessed a shift in the allegiance of the propertied middle classes, for a variety of reasons—disillusionment with the Liberals in power, the unsettling growth of a mass democratic system, and several perceived threats to property—from Liberalism to Conservatism.105

This realignment was not only a product of Liberal alienation but also derived from a growing regard for Tory politics. Aside from pur-suing what was construed as a “pro-Jewish” line during the Eastern question, Conservatism had been refashioned over the 1870s and im-bued by party leader Benjamin Disraeli with a popular appeal. Most famously in speeches at Manchester and Crystal Palace in 1872, Dis-raeli located nationalist sentiment in Britain’s ancient institutions, promoted the need for social reform, and lauded the country’s impe-rial achievements, investing Conservatism with an appeal that was both national and inclusive.106 The JC was impressed: “The Conserva-tive Government, although circumstances did not permit it fully to carry them out, had beneficial schemes and bright promise for our race.”107 Disraeli himself was first notable for stimulating Jewish inter-est in the Tories. He was a great friend and regular guest of the Roth-schilds, charming all the family; “You can have no idea how delightfully agreeable Mr. Disraeli was yesterday; we listened to him with intense admiration. . . . It was a great treat to hear him.”108 Dis-raeli’s reputation among Anglo-Jewry was cemented by his role in promoting Jewish rights at the Congress of Berlin—which effectively ended the Eastern crisis in July 1878—where, following a written re-quest from Lionel, he supported clauses guaranteeing civil equality for Jews in the Danubian Principalities. In the years after this event, Nathaniel de Rothschild was to refer to Disraeli, with only the slight-est sense of flattery, as “the greatest of British statesmen.”109 Impressed by his intimacy with their premier family, gratified by his glorifica-tion of the Jewish race, and appreciative of his interest in Jewish rights, the wider Jewish community claimed Disraeli as one of their own: “Benjamin Disraeli belongs to the Jewish people, despite his baptismal certificate. His talents, his virtues and shortcomings alike, are purely of the Jewish cast.”110 Disraeli’s appeal to Jewry exceeded the conventionally political. It addressed the very definition of their

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identity in the post-emancipation world, demonstrating the impor-tance the community still attached to its exceptionality, which it often interpreted ethnically, while coveting inclusion as full Englishmen. Disraeli, in both action and example, enabled such duality. And this had a powerful impact on Jewish political allegiance.

These various Jewish-based considerations, operating in tandem with general trends, broke the Liberal party’s monopoly on Jewish af-filiation. Jews in the 1880s were able to identify their particular inter-ests with both political parties, and Jewishness ceased to be a conclusive factor. The JC noted in 1881 that “most City Jews are Con-servative, but we contend that their Judaism has had nothing to do with it.”111 By the end of the period, reference to English ideals was re-quired to determine Jewish allegiance, and independent political in-terests became decisive.

* * *

International politics and foreign affairs were obviously important to a community like the Jews, whose associations were historically cosmo-politan and supranational. The 1860 formation of the Alliance Israélite Universelle demonstrated that, despite emancipation’s restraints, Jews’ transnational bonds were still central to their identity. Jewish MPs, how-ever, did not often participate in discussion of British foreign affairs, though they regarded it as significant. Like most Victorians, English Jews attached great importance to British power in the world.112 As Simon explained: “British interests meant the interests of humanity; and, England claiming to be at the head of civilisation, was bound in duty to herself and to the cause of civilisation to maintain her pow-er . . . for the interests of mankind.”113 In this attitude, the MPs’ views were essentially indistinguishable from those of their colleagues. Jew and gentile met on common ground in their self-righteous belief in England’s civilizing role in the world.114 This was most fortunate for Jewry because it enabled them to avoid the old stigma of dual-loyalty and appear merely as the undifferentiated Englishmen they purported to be.

One incident in this period did, however, raise the specter of an alternative Jewish allegiance and gave the lie to emancipation’s as-sumption that inclusion had terminated Jewry’s separate identity: the aforementioned Bulgarian agitation and subsequent Eastern crisis. The majority of Anglo-Jews favored Disraeli’s policy of maintaining Ottoman control over the Balkans and opposed Gladstone’s agitation for Christian independence in the area. The community had tradi-

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tionally been pro-Turk. Using a nation’s treatment of Jews as a barom-eter of civilization, Jewish MPs had long found Balkan Christians wanting, claiming they possessed a “taint of semi-barbarism.”115 A similar conclusion was reached in 1876. Portrayed as brutal, lazy, and drunk, Eastern Christians were judged to have always acted against minorities. Jews, claimed the JC, were better off under Turkish rule, and as a result the community favored its continuation.116 In doing so, they were obviously acting on Jewish instincts, not English ones. Al-though Disraelian policy might have been defended as part of a long-standing British effort to sustain Turkish dominion against Russian encroachment, Anglo-Jewry evaluated the situation only from the perspective of their Eastern coreligionists:

There is, in the first place, a feeling of gratitude which sways our sympa-thy for Turkey. . . . Things go by comparison, and if we institute a com-parison between the woes inflicted on the Jew by Esau, as Christendom was figuratively designated, and those suffered from Ismael, as Maho-metanism was called by the rabbis, the latter were found more endurable. . . . Bulgarians, the moment they were at liberty to work their will, fell upon their peaceful neighbours the Jews.117

Only De Worms, not yet an MP, attempted a more comprehensive vindi-cation of his position, actively defending Turkey in lectures and in his work England’s Policy in the East.118 Savaging Russian machinations—he was later to blame them for orchestrating the original massacres—and castigating the opposition for encouraging “an unnatural alliance be-tween free England and despotic Russia,” De Worms linked Tory policy in the East with the Palmerstonian tradition of defending English self-interest.119 Referring often to the historical example of the Crimean war, De Worms professed: “I am one of those who think that the exis-tence of Turkey is a necessity, not qua Turkey but qua England.”120

Problematically, this argument and the general position of Jews transgressed several traditional foreign policy ideals. Jews were de-fending Turkey, hardly a civilized state by British standards and one obviously prejudiced toward its minorities, through a policy that could well require intervention and war. This was an extraordinary prioritizing of Jewish sympathy. Unfortunately for Jewry, it could not be conflated with British concerns. The Bulgarian agitation had sharply split public and political opinion, and both sides claimed to represent the genuine values of the country. Divisions even ran through political parties: moderate Liberals were suspicious of the agitation, whereas most nonconformists and Anglo-Catholics sup-

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ported it. The Tory party was torn between aggressive pro-Turks, moderates in favor of defending the Ottoman Empire if necessary, and men like Lord Derby who preferred peace at whatever price.121 In overwhelmingly backing Disraelian policy when the population sur-rounding it was divided, Jewry marked itself as different, as possessed of a peculiar standpoint. Moreover, dissenters—the group Jewry had so often associated itself with—fiercely backed Gladstone in an agita-tion that was to be one of the greatest demonstrations of the “non-conformist conscience.”122

This development did not go unnoticed or uncriticized. Many Lib-erals (correctly, if somewhat pejoratively) ascribed this position to “Mosaic tendencies,” which they located outside the traditions of English morality.123 Groups that had supported Jewish emancipa-tion—nonconformists, radicals, and Liberal intellectuals—now criti-cized the community as “unpatriotic and anti-English.”124 Gladstone himself, in an interview with the editor of the JC, “lamented that the Judaic sympathies both within the Jewish community, but still more markedly among Jewish sympathizers, should be on the side of Tur-key, which militated against the spread of civilization, and was unnat-ural to the Jewish people, who themselves had suffered so much from persecution.”125 Some MPs did show a genuine empathy with the suf-fering Bulgarians: Simon presided over a protest meeting, and Fran-cis Goldsmid contributed £200 to the relief fund.126 But bias over Turkey’s future was difficult to refute. The Eastern crisis was the starkest illustration of the confusion remaining over the possibilities of Jewish definition in the post-emancipation era. The question of their identity, Jews realized, was still an unresolved issue: “[W]e have yet, completely, to prove to the world that we are integral parts of the state-organisation, and that we stand and fall by it alone, however much we recognise the fact among ourselves.”127 Too much Jewish-ness in politics was controversial and could have dangerous repercus-sions for the Englishness of Anglo-Jewish identity.

The Eastern crisis was an aberration. Jewish politicians were usu-ally very careful to avoid any possible clash with Christian sensitivities and, even more so, the appearance of possessing a supranational identity. These considerations did not mean, however, that Anglo-Jewry completely abandoned representing the cause of their foreign brethren within British politics. Both before and after the Bulgarian agitation, a small group of Jewish politicians attempted to use their in-fluence as English MPs to assist their coreligionists abroad—notably, to ameliorate cases of persecution. And over the period, through speeches, questions, correspondence, and behind-the-scenes activity,

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they consistently did so. Denouncing foreign persecution, updating the state of House intelligence, and inquiring of British ambassado-rial intentions in disturbed regions, the MPs regularly highlighted in-ternational Jews’ plight. This was a task they viewed as incumbent upon them not merely as Jews but as the most privileged of Jews. Fran-cis Goldsmid moralized:

When I contrast the condition of my religious community here with their condition in Servia and Romania—when I remember that we are here not only in the enjoyment of all civil and political rights, but that several of us have the honour of being members of this Assembly and can, in this place, make our voices heard . . . I cannot, I must own, resist the appeal which has been made to me.128

As in the domestic sphere, gentiles appear to have expected such par-tisan actions and even been happy to accommodate them. No Jewish MP was ever abused for this activity.

Principally, this was because they operated within the boundaries of acceptable Jewish behavior. The MPs were aware of the delicate na-ture of their efforts, which were, consequently, tightly self-regulated and very formulaic. Any possible conflict between Jewish and English considerations was overcome by following a well-established pattern. Appeals on behalf of foreign Jews were made not as Jewish MPs but as MPs of the Jewish persuasion. Particular interests were subsumed within the pieties of national ideology: England’s responsibility to ad-vance its morality and civilization to the downtrodden.129 Simon, pro-testing Romanian Jews’ treatment, admitted his personal Jewish concern; “he should, however, as an Englishman have felt it to be equally his duty to raise his voice in behalf of the victims of these out-rages had they been members of a different religious communion.”130 In conjunction with this, much time was spent referring to treaty rights and the precedence of international law to demonstrate that Britain was entitled to intervene.131 This tended to limit the geography of ap-peals and their efficacy. Only weaker countries or those subject to inter-national arbitration were indicted, and the action requested was frequently limited to publicizing grievances and obtaining expressions of gentile sympathy; it was “hoped that the discussion of the subject in the British House of Commons would have a moral effect.”132 The con-tinuing pleas of Jewish MPs demonstrate that they were unable to achieve any permanent improvements for foreign Jews. It is unlikely that they could have done more. These inhibited efforts were still a re-markable indication of the continuing bond English Jews felt with their

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international coreligionists, for whom they were willing to mobilize British resources. Emancipation may have constrained Anglo-Jewry’s diasporic connections, but it had not negated them.

These constraints were, of course, largely assumed and by no means permanent. Like the Bulgarian crisis, which had seen Jews in-crease their partisan input to British foreign affairs, the situation concerning these specifically confessional appeals could be adapted to changing circumstances. In a move that illustrates the potential fluidity of Anglo-Jewish definition within the political sphere, De Worms attempted to reassess the established pattern in 1882 over the matter of the Russian pogroms. Having bothered the Liberal minis-try with inquiries into its intentions over 1881, De Worms, frustrated by lack of progress, sought to achieve a more robust consideration of Jewish interests. In March 1882, he introduced a House of Commons motion urging the government to greater efforts to halt Russian persecution:

That this House, deeply deploring the persecution and outrages to which the Jews have been subjected in portions of the Russian Empire, trusts that Her Majesty’s Government will find means . . . of using their good offices with the Government of His Majesty the Czar to prevent the recurrence of similar acts of violence.133

But Gladstone’s government, the Liberal party, and most Tories were hostile. All De Worms obtained were a few routine expressions of ministerial sympathy, and he was forced to withdraw.134 Parliament had clearly indicated the extent of its compassion for international Jewry; De Worms’s action had exceeded an acceptable level of Jewish particularity. It appears that other Jewish MPs shared this sentiment, for none supported the motion. Simon and Arthur Cohen had, in fact, led attempts to defeat it, ostensibly because they did not believe it would be efficacious.135 Beneath this reasoning, though, were other motivations. Party politics did exercise a notable influence, but the perception these politicians held regarding the appropriate role of Jewishness in politics was the primary motivation. For Simon and Cohen, the two Jews most notable for their loyalty to Gladstone over Bulgaria, sectarian concerns could never transcend national inter-ests—especially since, in this case, they were mixed up with vindica-tion of Liberal party policy. De Worms, too, would never have countenanced promoting Jewish causes over national ones, but he judged England’s political context differently. Using the Bulgarian agitation as a point of reference, he misread the situation. Taking his

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lead from inflamed public opinion, De Worms believed that Britain was now prepared to pursue minority issues, and therefore a more ac-tive style of Jewish protest could be advanced.136 He was wrong. Un-like the case of Bulgaria, the public mood of 1882 did not demand action; it demurred to Parliament, where neither party was interested in adopting the cause.137

Simon and Cohen had a better grasp of the situation. Russia was an independent power with whom Parliament had no legal or diplo-matic ability to interfere. “What right had this country to pass a vote of censure upon a foreign power?” Simon pontificated. “It was the very A, B, C of International Law that one independent country should not interfere with the internal affairs of another country.”138 Furthermore, relations were becoming increasingly friendly between the two countries, and an incident could not be risked on account of the Jews.139 British realpolitik militated against action. Simon and Cohen realized this and, as Englishmen, of course, concurred. In these circumstances Simon saw no benefit to “dragging the unfortu-nate Jews and their sufferings before the House of Commons.”140 The Russian pogroms delimited the sphere within which Anglo-Jewry’s political dual identity was possible. De Worms’s motion, Simon and Cohen realized, was pushing the boundaries, tipping the actions of Jewish MPs unacceptably into sectarian partiality and away from their duty as representatives of the nation. These two Liberal Jews placed their hopes, instead, in the power of public opinion and sought to ex-ercise their Jewish sympathies in this less political arena. Cohen as-sisted the Russo-Jewish Committee, and Simon organized the fundraising Mansion House meeting.141

The JC endorsed this low-key perspective, advising De Worms to withdraw his motion and extolling self-restraint for Jewish MPs con-cerning the Russian atrocities.142 The paper’s uncharacteristic timidity reinforced Simon’s statement to the House that “persons of position in the Jewish community, to whose opinion weight ought to be attached, did not wish this subject to be brought forward.”143 This assertion was somewhat disingenuous, however, Simon having confided to Gladstone months earlier the existence of a contrary sentiment: “[T]here is begin-ning to grow up among some people a fear lest you might not be as will-ing to act for their brethren in Russia . . . as on behalf of the Bulgarian Christians.”144 Indeed, Jewish opinion on this emotional issue was far from unanimous. The council of the Anglo-Jewish Association, the British branch of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, strongly backed De Worms, uniformly passing a resolution of “cordial thanks” for his ac-tion. Simon, present at the meeting, petulantly took the measure “to

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imply a vote of censure on his own action in the same affair” and, feel-ing that “it was impossible to work longer with Baron Henry de Worms,” resigned his vice presidency before walking out.145 There was evidently no consensus within the Jewish body about the level of political effort that should be risked for the causes of their foreign brethren. Jewish MP clashed publicly with Jewish MP, and, due to their role as commu-nal representatives, these disputes echoed within the community insti-tutions they served.

* * *

No set or established Jewish political identity existed in the immediate post-emancipation decades. As judged through the actions of Jewish MPs, Anglo-Jewish attitudes defy standard classification. Derived from various criteria—ethnic, religious, and political—operating at differ-ent times and in different measures, Jewish definition within British political discourse had a protean character. Incorporating both excep-tionalism and universalism, it sought to protect the community’s mi-nority specificity as well as equal citizenship (without reverting to the old “imperium in imperio”) yet be more than the whitewashed copy of nonconformity some emancipationists had expected. It was a position of balance and compromise. This duality reflected the unique situation of the European Jew, as the JC summarized:

The relation of the Jew to the peoples amongst whom he resides pres-ents this startling anomaly—he is an alien whom no legal “naturalisa-tion” can transform; and at the same time he is a countryman by birth. . . . And this dual nature no amount of time can destroy; but, on the contrary, it will become more marked and intensified as the legisla-tures of enlightened countries afford the Jews opportunities of showing that whilst a religious principle is sufficient to preserve the homogeneity of an entire people, it is not incompatible with the sincerest devotion to the best interests of a state.146

Emancipation had, evidently, not resolved the Jews’ status in Britain. Lionel de Rothschild’s 1858 entry into the House of Commons had confirmed their existence as British citizens but, as with other emanci-pated European Jews, equality had left the nature of their Jewish defini-tion unclear. The period 1858–87 witnessed the emergence of a distinct Jewish standpoint as Jews attempted to negotiate an acceptable posi-tion. There was no unanimity among Jewish MPs on the parameters of this course, and, though usually deferential to British party politics, they frequently adopted various and opposing positions. There was

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enough space within British political discourse, however, to accommo-date this range of opinions. Only when Jewish proclivities seemed to in-fringe on national interest or popular opinion were they discredited and deemed untenable. Otherwise, there was little antagonism be-tween Jewish and English politics. The British system, long used to treating minorities in a national context, offered much scope for the harmonious interaction of the two, which in many instances were ex-ceedingly complementary. More so than many of their European core-ligionists, Anglo-Jews managed to surmount the dichotomous impact of equality on their identity. By possessing an ambiguous and fluid self-definition, Anglo-Jews were able to construct a remarkably successful subcultural identity—marrying a universal nationality with a Judaism that, despite being substantially acculturated, retained ethnic and col-lective particularities. The Jewish Chronicle was being only slightly opti-mistic when it decreed: “As Jews let us be earnest Jews; as Englishmen let us be earnest Englishmen. The duties of our race will not interfere with the duties of citizenship.”147

Notes

1 C. Roth, A History of the Jews in England, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1964), 268. 2 T. Endelman, The Jews of Britain, 1656–2000 (London, 2002), 6. 3 G. Alderman, The Jewish Community in British Politics (Oxford, 1983). 4 W. Rubenstein, A History of the Jews in the English-Speaking World: Great

Britain (New York, 1996), 78. 5 D. Feldman, Englishmen and Jews: Social Relations and Political Culture,

1840–1914 (London, 1994). 6 A full list of all Jewish election candidates and MPs in this period,

along with details concerning their party affiliation and constituen-cies, can be found in M. Jolles, Directory of Distinguished British Jews (Lon-don, 2002), 95–99.

7 See W. Rubinstein, “Jewish Top Wealth-Holders in Britain, 1809–1909,” Jewish Historical Studies 37 (2001): 133–61.

8 Goldsmid and Salomons were simultaneously bankers and solicitors and have been counted in both occupational groups. They or their families owned banking businesses from which they drew the majority of their income, but both took up legal practice in order to further Jew-ish equality. The multitalented Henry de Worms has also been counted as a barrister, despite not practicing.

9 See various entries in P. Emden, Jews of Britain: A Series of Biographies (London, 1944), which tend to comment on the Parliamentary perfor-mance of the MPs.

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10 P. Birnbaum, “Between Social and Political Assimilation: Remarks on the History of Jews in France,” in Paths of Emancipation: Jews, States, and Citizenship, ed. P. Birnbaum and I. Katznelson (Princeton, 1995), 115.

11 M. Jolles, A Directory of Distinguished British Jews, 1830–1930, with Selected Compilations Extending from 1830 to 2000 (London, 2002), 85, 94.

12 Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates: General Index 1883–86 and 1887 (London).

13 Jewish Chronicle [hereafter JC], June 21, 1878, p. 2. JC is the oldest, most continuously published Jewish newspaper in the world. It began regu-lar publication in the early 1840s.

14 D. Gutwein, The Divided Elite: Economics, Politics and Anglo-Jewry, 1882–1917 (Leiden, 1992), 127.

15 JC, June 6, 1879, p. 11. 16 Bodleian Library, Hughenden Papers, 141/3, fols. 106–43, Letter from

Nathaniel de Rothschild to Disraeli, Dec. 8, 1879. 17 Gutwein, Divided Elite, 126. 18 L. Montagu, Samuel Montagu, First Baron Swaythling (London, 1913), 66. 19 Bodleian Library, Papers of Sir William Harcourt, MS Harcourt dep

208, fols. 143–44, Letter from A. Cohen to Harcourt, Nov. 4, 1879. 20 The Rothschild Archive, Mayer de Rothschild Election Ephemera,

000/235, Report of Mayer’s Hythe election address, n.d. (ca. 1868). 21 Kentish Mercury, Feb. 12, 1859, p. 4. 22 See individual entries in Jolles, Directory of Distinguished British Jews, and

Who’s Who of British Members of Parliament, vols. 1–2 (Brighton, 1976, 1978). 23 See entries in Who’s Who of British Members of Parliament, vols. 1–2. 24 Anglo-Jewish Archives, Southampton, Papers of Lord Swaythling,

scrapbook of press cuttings, MS 117, pp. 8, 90. 25 Ibid., 4. 26 University of Cambridge Library, Papers of Lord Randolph Churchill,

Vol. V, Add. MS 9248/5/604, Letter from Cohen to Churchill, May 6, 1885.

27 Derby Reporter, Oct. 16, 1885, p. 4. 28 M. Salbstein, The Emancipation of the Jews in Britain: The Question of the

Admission of the Jews to Parliament, 1828–1860 (London, 1982), 216; Kent-ish Mercury, Feb. 13, 1859, p. 3.

29 Rochester and Chatham Journal and Mid-Kent Advertiser, July 16, 1870, p. 4. 30 Ibid., July 23, 1870, p. 3. 31 Ibid., July 16, 1870, p. 3. 32 Ibid., July 23, 1870, p. 3. 33 Ibid., 4. 34 Ibid., July 30, 1870, p. 3. 35 Ibid., Jan. 31, 1874, n.p., and Mar. 27, 1880, n.p. 36 Bucks Advertiser and Aylesbury News, Dec. 5, 1885, p. 4. The Tory candidate

apparently used racial innuendo and described Rothschild as a Shylock character; the inhabitants of Waddesdon subsequently stoned his car-riage when he entered the village. There was also an isolated episode on

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polling day in the village of Missenden, where a placard was hawked around the streets proclaiming: “Who persecuted Christ? The Jews.”

37 W. Mosse, “From ‘Schutzjuden’ to ‘Deutsche Staatsbürger Jüdischen Glaubens’: The Long and Bumpy Road of Jewish Emancipation in Ger-many,” in Birnbaum and Katznelson, Paths of Emancipation, 88–90.

38 T. Endelman, “The Englishness of Jewish Modernity in England,” in Toward Modernity: The European Jewish Model, ed. J. Katz (New Bruns-wick, N.J., 1987), 237.

39 See, e.g., “Salomons, the Friend of the People,” 1859 election song, Greenwich Local Archives.

40 Anglo-Jewish Archives, Southampton, Papers of Lord Swaythling, scrapbook of press cuttings, MS 117, p. 4.

41 Ibid., 17. 42 JC, Nov. 20, 1885, p. 6. 43 The French National Assembly, “Debate on the Eligibility of Jews for Citi-

zenship,” Dec. 23, 1789, in The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary His-tory, 2nd ed., ed. P. Mendes-Flohr and J. Reinharz (Oxford, 1995), 115.

44 JC, Apr. 9, 1880, p. 9, and Jewish World, Mar. 12, 1880, p. 5. 45 Hansard 267 (Mar. 3, 1882): 39–40, 45–46. 46 Ibid., 63. The quote is from Charles Dilke, the Liberal MP for Chelsea. 47 Jewish World, Apr. 2, 1880, p. 4. For an example from the JC, see July 28,

1865, p. 4. 48 G. Alderman, Modern British Jewry, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1998), 65. 49 JC, Feb. 8, 1860, p. 4. 50 JC, Feb. 4, 1870, p. 9. 51 Hansard 201–3 (May–August 1870), and Anglo-Jewish Archives, South-

ampton, Papers of P. Goldberg, MS 148/2, United Synagogue, Official documents and reports.

52 Mosse, “From ‘Schutzjuden,’” 65. See also C. W. von Dohm, Über die Bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden (Berlin 1781).

53 I. Finestein, Jewish Society in Victorian England (London, 1993), 55, 67–68. This acceptance was made more remarkable by the fact that it was carried out against determined opposition from the chief rabbi and the Board of Deputies, both of which wanted exemption.

54 JC, July 28, 1865, p. 4. 55 Ibid. 56 D. Cesarani, “British Jews,” in The Emancipation of Catholics, Jews and

Protestants: Minorities and the Nation State in Nineteenth Century Europe, ed. R. Liedtke and S. Wendehorst (Manchester, 1999), 49.

57 JC, Feb. 6, 1874, p. 753. 58 Hansard 205 (Mar. 17, 1871): 174. 59 JC, June 3, 1870, p. 9. 60 JC, May 19, 1871, p. 6. 61 Finestein, Jewish Society, 58–59. 62 JC, May 25, 1849, pp. 265–66. 63 JC, Mar. 9, 1866, p. 4.

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64 JC, Nov. 24, 1871, p. 9. 65 JC, Mar. 7, 1873, p. 711. 66 The Times, Feb. 16, 1871, p. 9. 67 JC, Feb. 26, 1869, p. 4. 68 Ibid. 69 JC, Mar. 15, 1872, p. 9; Hansard 222 (Feb. 17, 1875): 467. 70 Hansard 195 (Apr. 21, 1869): 1313. 71 The Times, May 3, 1866, p. 10. 72 Feldman, Englishmen and Jews, 35–36, 41–42. 73 JC, Nov. 27, 1885, p. 9. 74 Derby Daily Telegraph, Nov. 12, 1885, p. 4. 75 Nottinghamshire Guardian, Jan. 30, 1874, p. 2; JC, Oct. 30, 1885, p. 8. 76 JC, Nov. 6, 1885, p. 7. 77 Jewish World, Nov. 27, 1885, p. 5. 78 Ibid. 79 Feldman, Englishmen and Jews, 120. 80 J. Parry, Democracy and Religion: Gladstone and the Liberal Party, 1867–

1875 (Cambridge, Engl., 1986), 46, 451. 81 JC, Mar. 16, 1877, p. 9. 82 JC, Sept. 20, 1872, p. 344. 83 G. Alderman, “English Jews or Jews of the English Persuasion? Reflec-

tions on the Emancipation of Anglo-Jewry,” in Birnbaum and Katznel-son, Paths of Emancipation, 154.

84 I. Finestein, Scenes and Personalities in Anglo-Jewry, 1800–2000 (London, 2002), 120–21.

85 The Times, Feb. 21, 1871, p. 7. 86 Ibid. 87 Hansard 204 (Feb. 20, 1871): 511–12. Francis Goldsmid was the excep-

tion, and his reasons were technical rather than idealistic: “[H]e was convinced that the success of the amendment would be fatal to the Bill, he thought that, though abstractedly favourable to the amendment, he was acting quite consistently . . . in voting against it.” Jessel and Mayer de Rothschild did not vote.

88 Ibid., 511. 89 JC, Apr. 15, 1870, p. 7. 90 Finestein, Scenes and Personalities in Anglo-Jewry, 60–61. The most signifi-

cant clauses were 14(2), which prohibited any form of denominational teaching, and 7(2), which allowed children to be withdrawn on consci-entious grounds; this was especially useful to Jews, because instruction was still Christian-based.

91 Hansard 203 ( July 11, 1870): 59. 92 JC, Aug. 25, 1876, p. 328. 93 JC, Feb. 15, 1867, p. 4. 94 Ibid. 95 Alderman, Jewish Community, 17. 96 The Times, Mar. 25, 1875, p. 7.

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97 JC, July 23, 1886, p. 9. 98 JC, Dec. 4, 1885, p. 4; The Times, Oct. 22, 1879, p. 8. 99 Alderman, Jewish Community, 42. 100 JC, Aug. 19, 1881, p. 9. 101 Feldman, Englishmen and Jews, 97–98. 102 The Times, Oct. 18, 1879, p. 8. 103 JC, Mar. 18, 1870, p. 8. 104 JC, Nov. 27, 1885, p. 9. 105 P. Smith, Disraelian Conservatism and Social Reform (London, 1967),

323–24. 106 T. Kebbel, ed., Selected Speeches of the Late Right Hon. The Earl of Beacons-

field, vol. 2 (London, 1882), 506, 524–28; G. Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Vol. V: 1868–1876 (London, 1920), 187–95.

107 JC, Apr. 30, 1880, p. 9. 108 The Rothschild Archive, Rothschild Family Correspondence, Char-

lotte, RFam C/21, Letter from Charlotte to Leopold, Jan. 29, 1866. 109 Bodleian Library, Hughenden Papers, 141/3, fols. 106–43, Letter from

Nathaniel de Rothschild to Disraeli, Nov. 29, 1880. This assessment starkly contrasts with Nathaniel’s contemporaneous evaluation of the Liberal leader, whom he dubbed “that arch-fiend Gladstone.” See Let-ter from Nathaniel de Rothschild to Disraeli, Dec. 9, 1879.

110 JC, Aug. 18, 1876, p. 312. Not all Jews were this enthusiastic about Dis-raeli. Julian Goldsmid for one, criticized him as “the licensed ro-mancer of a prosaic ministry.” See Hansard 244 (Mar. 24, 1879): 1519.

111 JC, Aug. 19, 1881, p. 9. 112 Finestein, Jewish Society, 168–69. 113 Hansard 238 (Mar. 22, 1878): 1867. 114 Finestein, Jewish Society, 169. 115 Hansard 186 (Mar. 29, 1867): 839. 116 JC, Sept. 1, 1876, p. 339. 117 JC, Oct. 5, 1877, p. 10. Other Jewish reasons probably reinforced this

viewpoint. Some Jews had considerable investments in Turkey that would have been endangered if the Empire were dissected; most were generally anti-Russian and would have been naturally suspicious of Christian agitation. See Feldman, Englishmen and Jews, 97–98.

118 H. de Worms, England’s Policy in the East (London, 1877), 7–8. 119 Ibid., 45, 51; H. de Worms, Home and Foreign Policy of the Conservative

Government: Three Speeches Delivered by Baron Henry de Worms to the Electors of Greenwich (London, 1880), 39, 44.

120 De Worms, Home and Foreign Policy, 7, 13. 121 Parry, Democracy and Religion, 432; R. Seton-Watson, Disraeli, Gladstone

and the Eastern Question: A Study in Diplomacy and Party Politics, reprint ed. (London, 1971), 236.

122 R. Shannon, Gladstone and the Bulgarian Agitation, 1876, 2nd ed. (Sus-sex, 1976), 160.

123 JC, July 5, 1878, p. 7.

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124 Feldman, Englishmen and Jews, 94; JC, Oct. 5, 1877, p. 9. 125 JC, Nov. 3, 1876, p. 486. 126 JC, Sept. 29, 1876, p. 402, and Jan. 12, 1877, p. 12. 127 JC, Apr. 30, 1880, p. 9. 128 Hansard 210 (Apr. 19, 1872): 1586. 129 Feldman, Englishmen and Jews, 122. 130 Hansard 210 (Apr. 19, 1872): 1601. 131 Hansard 184 (Mar. 29, 1867): 839, and 250 (Feb. 17, 1880): 794–95. 132 A. Löwy and D. Marks, A Memoir of Sir Francis Henry Goldsmid (London,

1879), 192. 133 Hansard 267 (Mar. 3, 1882): 30. 134 Ibid., 50–70. 135 Ibid., 43. 136 Ibid., 34. 137 Feldman, Englishmen and Jews, 133. 138 Hansard 267 (Mar. 3, 1882): 42, 45. 139 Bodleian Library, Papers of the Prime Ministers of Great Britain, Mi-

crofilm, Series 8, Papers of William Ewart Gladstone, Add. Ms. 44474 fol. 133, Letter from Simon to Gladstone, Feb. 5, 1882; Hansard 267 (Mar. 3, 1882): 41–42, 45.

140 Hansard 267 (Mar. 3, 1882): 42. 141 Alderman, Jewish Community, 33. 142 JC, Feb. 10, 1882, p. 5. 143 Hansard 267 (Mar. 3, 1882): 45. 144 Bodleian Library, Papers of the Prime Ministers of Great Britain, Mi-

crofilm, Series 8, Papers of William Ewart Gladstone, General Corre-spondence, Add. Ms. 44474, fol. 103, Letter from Simon to Gladstone, Jan. 29, 1882.

145 Anglo-Jewish Archive, Southampton, Papers of the Anglo-Jewish Associa-tion, MS 137, Council Minute Book, ii, pp. 16–20; JC, Mar. 10, 1882, p. 8.

146 JC, Feb. 28, 1872, p. 291. 147 JC, Feb. 6, 1874, p. 753.